Nation’s Most Restrictive Anti-Choice Law Struck Down

A federal judge has struck down the most restrictive anti-choice law in the nation.

On Wednesday, a U.S. District judge overturned the North Dakota law that prohibited abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Typically, that cutoff is about six weeks, before many women even realize that they are pregnant.

The highly restrictive law was being challenged by North Dakota’s only abortion clinic, which filed suit when the legislation was passed last summer.

In his decision, the District Judge explicitly declared the law “invalid and unconstitutional.” Under Roe v. Wade, which has stood for over four decades, states cannot ban abortion outright before the point of viability.

The ruling comes as no surprise to either side of the abortion debate, but it does come at considerable cost to taxpayers. Already, the state has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees to defend huge government infringements that are clearly unconstitutional. If the case is appealed further, that will only rack up more bills. Anti-choice leaders, however, increasingly prove that they have no qualms about increasing the size of government, inserting politics into physicians’ offices, and defending their extremist actions with taxpayer funding.